Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written near 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was titled The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth in the First Folio text.
The play is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2. The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in the Henry IV plays as a wild, undisciplined young man. In Henry V, the young prince has matured. He embarks on an expedition to France and, his army badly outnumbered, defeats the French at Agincourt.
Summary:
After an insult from the French Dauphin, King Henry V of England invades France to claim the throne he believed should be his. Henry stops an assassination plot, gives powerful speeches, and wins battles against the odds. In the end, he woos and marries the Princess of France, linking the two nations.
Unfortunately, no play was available on Youtube but Laurence Olivier's 1944 film only.
The Movie:
Laurence Olivier's second Shakespeare film (following his role in Paul Czinner's 1937 As You Like It) pushed the adaptation of the Bard onto an entirely new plane. Fascinating not just for its approach to the text but also for its portrait of multiple facets of the British character, calibrated for explicitly propagandist purposes in the Second World War to be a call to arms as such formed a powerful reminder of what Britain was defending.
CAST
King Henry V of England: OLIVIER, Laurence
Chorus: BANKS, Leslie
Ancient Pistol: NEWTON, Robert
Lieutenant Bardolph: EMERTON, Roy
Fluellen, captain in the English Army :KNIGHT, Esmond
Princess Katherine: ASHERSON, Renee
Archbishop of Canterbury: AYLMER, Felix
Bishop of Ely: HELPMANN, Robert
King Charles VI of France: WILLIAMS, Harcourt
The Dauphin: ADRIAN, Max
Mountjoy, the French Herald: TRUMAN, Ralph
Duke of Exeter: HANNEN, Nicholas
Alice, a lady-in-waiting: ST. HELIER, Ivy
Mistress Quickly: JACKSON, Freda
Sir John Falstaff: ROBEY, George
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